An appeal to Protestant charity and English justice

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AN APPEAL,

AN APPEAL

TO

PROTESTANT CHARITY

AND

Cnslfe]^ 3fttfitice.

LONDON:

PRINTED rOR J. RIDGWAY, 170, PICCADILLY.
OPPOSITE BOND-STREET.

1813.
W. Flint, Printer, Old Bailey, London.

l^Price Three Pence. ^

APPEAL, &c.

P.rotestant;s and Englishmen,

In virtue of the first name, you are
friends of religious liberty ; in right of
the second you are champions of political
freedom. As such I address you — I am
no Roman Catholic, nor am I a Dissenter ;
I am a member of that church which
preaches, " peace upon earth, and good
will to all men ;^^ which enforces the in-»
junction of " love one another ;" which
inculcates the golden rule of '* Do unto
others, as you would that others slwuld do
unto you.^^

Persons styling themselves a "Protestant
Union," tell you, that an English Roman
Catholic enjoys all his rights ; and many
gentlemen and clergymen, who are them-
jselvespossessed of places of emolument and
power, and are possibly in expectation gf

8

t?iore, alTiriu with great complacency,
that there is no hardship whatever in
being disquaUfied from holding any; I
wish to examine tlic assertions and weigh
the arguments of men, who with tolera-
tion on their lips, seem to me to have
persecution in their hearts.

Exclusion from all share of political
power is, according to them, no violation
of right, and no practical grievance to
those who are the objects of it. The
Roman Catholics, say they, are unre-
strained in their religious worship : I
will not insist on trifling exceptions, but
admit it, and what then ? The right of
worshipping the Deity as our conscience
dictates, is indeed a sacred right ; but is
it the only right of freemen and English-
men ? Is it not our birth-right, to con-
sent, either by ourselves, or our repre-
sentatives, to taxes before we pay them }
Are we not entitled to be eligible to par-
liament, if our property, and the good
opinion of our fellow subjects qualify us
for the situation ? Are not all oflfices of
state open to Englishmen of genius, in-
tegrity, and patriotism ? Or have we
really, as a bishop would once have per-
suaded us, nothing to do with the laws,
but to obey them ? Has not every
Englishman a share in his own govern-

ment, or cannot he at least obtain it hy
an exertion of the industry, or a display
of the virtue with which God has en-
dowed him ? The answer must be : Every
Englishman, unless he should unluckily
believe in certain obscure and mysterious,
tenets, called Transubstantiation^Invocationr
of Saints, and Spiritual Supremacy of the
Pope : Those unfortunate men who con-
scientiously believe in these very innocent
errors, may have the benefit of good
laws, made exclusively by persons not
of their persuasion, and revocable at the
will of the same, and so may the subjects,
and slaves of the most arbitrary govern-
ments in the world : but security for the
enjoyment of those laws, they and the Ro-
man Catholics in England have none. Ei-
ther the votes, then, of freeholders, the
eligibility to offices, and the share which
we possess in our government are not, as
we are apt to consider them, rights,but are
granted as mere matters of sirace and
fevour, by some king, some lords, or
some bishops, or our Roman Catholic
fellow-subjects are deprived of those
rights to which their English birth would
by common law clearly entitle them.

That the loss of these rights is a prac-
tical hardship, is yet more clear ; indeed
the more enlii^htened adversaries of the

Catholic claims acknowledge it to be so*
To describe all the sufferings of an infe-
rior, degraded, and excluded race of men,
of Helots in a land of freedom, would
require a volume ; to paint them in ade-»
quale colours would demand the elo-
quence of a Fox, a Burke, or a Grattan ;
but any man who has the sense to value
liberty, must feel and understand them*
Let those who exercise the glorious rights
of Englishmen, reflect what would be
' their feelings at being deprived of them.
'To maintain, and to presei've them, we
spend our treasure, and we shed our
blood : of these sacrifices our Catholic
fellow-subjects have their full share, of
the benefits they have none. But these
sufferings, it may be said, are those of
mere feeling and sensibility, and only
affect men who have a natural independ-
ence of spirit, and a dignified elevation
of mind. Let us then see how the inter-^
ests of a Catholic are practically aft'ected
by these exclusive laws. Here is a man
of rank, of ancient family, and landed
property ; but he is a Catholic : his estate
is entailed, he has a family of children, full
of spirit, activity, and genius ; what is to
become of the younger branches ? Where
is the Protestant nobleman or gentle-*
man in the kingdom, who with such a

6

family, woiild not shudder at being tald
that every liberal profession was for ever
closed against his sons ? That not one
of them could be an officer in navy
or army, that not one of them Could be a,
inember of parliament, or hold any office
at home or abroad ? That he must provide
out of his own fortune, the means of
keeping them in idleness, without advan-^
tage to the state, or credit to themselves ;
that the expensive education in which he
has trained them, may add to their intel-*
lectual enjoyments, but can never pro-
mote their fortunes, or contribute one
jot to advance their prospects in life*
The Catholic tradesman has also his pri-
vations, he may indeed obtain profits like
other tradesmen, but he can fill no office
in the corporation of his town ; he has no
vote for the member of his borough, he
can acquire none of that consideration
with his neighbours which in a free coun-
try is the chief incitement to industry,
and the greatest enjoyment of wealth and
independence. Even the mechanic or
labourer who is a Catholic, must feel that
if persecuted or injured against the letter
of the law, he has no representative from
whom he can claim protection, he has no
fellow-Catholic in power,in whose sympa*
thy and compassion he is sure to find
comfort and assistance^

These are real grievances or the advan-
tages of a free government are a mere
rhapsody of words.

But though I have proved that Ca-
tholics are stripped of their rights and
exposed to real practical hardships, I
allow that no rights are so sacred, but
state necessity may dispense with them,
that no hardships are so severe but the
general welfare of the community may
at times require a portion of its members
to endure them. — ^Those, however, who
withhold the right, and those who im-
pose the hardship are bound to make
that necessity clear, and to prove that
the evils they inflict are indispensably
requisite to the safety of the state. —
With them the task of making out their po-
sition, the onus probandi as it is called in an
old Latin phrase, unquestionably lies. Let
us look then to the facts and arguments
by which the necessity of depriving our
fellow citizens of their rights, and exposing
a fifth or fourth of the nation to real
practical grievances is generally maiuT^
tained. —

It is pretended, that a compliance with
the petitions of the Roman Catholics •
would repeal the acts of settlement, alter
the succession and endanger the establish-
ments.— The petitions themselves answer

this assertion.^ — The Catholics have never
asked for any alteration in the acts of set-
tlement, and so far from disputing the
Protestant succession, they do now swear,
and should their prayer be granted would
still continue to swear to maintain it. —
The establishments, if by that word is
meant the Protestant established churches
of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
are secured by the respective acts of
union, and with those acts and with
that security no relief which the Catho-
lics have demanded can by possibility
interfere.

It is said that the laws, now sought to
be repealed, were established at the glo-
riousRevolution of 1688. — The fact is not
so — but if it were, it would not prove
that they ought to be continued when the
reason for enacting them exists no longer,
— English Catholics were excluded from
office and parliament in the reign of
Charles the 2d, — and the laws excluding
them were passed under the influence of
terror and delusion, and with circum-
stances of confusion, disorder, and out-
rage, unparalleled in parliamentary
history. — The Irish Roman Catholics
were excluded from that parliament
in breach of a solemn treaty, but not
till three years after the revolution, nor
from their offices till near twenty. — The

ground on which such laws were passed
is removed, why should the laws remain ?
There is now no Papist who claims or
can claim the crown, and a belief in
the errors of Popery is no longer the
badge of a political party attached to an
exiled pretender.— But when the laws in
question were passed in I^iigland, the
presumptive heir to the crown was the
Puke of York, afterwards James the se-
cond, who was not only known to be a
Papist, but to have imbibed those ty-
raimical principles of government which
brought his father to the block, and af-
terwards led to his own expulsion from
the crown. — When similar laws passed in
Ireland he or his son were alive, and the
French king had openly espoused their
pretensions. — It was then thought' that
there was no better way of ascertaining
the partizans of King James and the
Pretender than by tjieir religion, and
they were for that reason, and that rea-
son only, excluded from parliament and
office.

Certain odious tenets aie also imputed
to Roman Catholics, which if true, would
not only disqualify them for any shaie
of political power but for human society
itself, — They are said to hold that no
faith is to be kept with persons who
differ with them in religion ; that priests

and the Pope particularly can absolve
them from all the obligations of an oath,
and all the duties of morality ; that they
may extirpate Heretics, that is, all
persons who do not concur in their reli-
gious creed. — Such things are said of
them in handbills, in pamphlets, obscure
publications, and petitions which have
undergone no discussion. — There is no
better proof of the falsehood of such
charges than this plain and striking fact.
— In parliament where an answer can be
given on the spot, such charges are sel-
dom or never made. — And by the leading
enemies of the Catholic claims they have
been formally abandoned. — Lord Liver-
pool, in 1810, acknowledged the expla-
nations on that head to be completely
satisfactory ; he pointedly and candidly
hoped that " no man now believed the
Catholics to hold such horrible doctrines ;"
and he distinctly declared that " the
question was opposed under no such pre-
tence ! ! The explanations he alluded to
were no doubt the answers of the foreign
Universities, and the oaths which Catho-
lick, English and Irish, now take, and
which speak of such doctrines with the
abhorrence they deserve. -^T hey are re-
proached with saying, that " the church
of Rome is always the same,'^ and an un-

c

10

fair inference is drawn that they approve
of every atrocity which has been com-
mitted in the name of that church, or by
princes or persons who held communion
with it. — What I understand by the saying
is that the religious creeds^ not that the
temporal laws of their institutions, much
less that the political maxims or conduct
of all the members of their church, are
always the same. — Many Roman Catho-
lics have been persecuting or bigotted,
and what religion can boast that none of
its members have been so ? But many
Roman Catholics have been, and nearly
all Roman Catholics are now tolerant and
liberal. — They petition, when subjects,
for liberty of conscience and removal of
all disabilities for all sects of Christians ;
when in power, as in France and in Hun-
gary, they grant to all other sects what
they ask for themselves here. The
members of a particular faith are not to
be judged by musty bulls of a Pope, or
obsolete decrees of a council, by the
occasional pretensions of their priests or
the accidental intemperance of their con-
troversial advocates. — They are to be tried
like other men ; for let it always be recol-
lected what the question is — It is pro-
posed to allow tlie people of England to
chuse laymen and gentlemen, and to per-
mit thekingtonominatelaymenandgentle-

11

men to offices though they are Catholics. —
It is not proposed to place them in parlia-
ment or in office, because they are Catho-
lics,much less to invest their priesthood or
hierarchy with any political power what-
ever. Such a preposterous project was
never suggested, and yet half the argu-
ments of their adversaries apply to no-
thing short of it.

Roman Catholics do however hold the
spiritual supremacy of the Pope ; that is,
they give the Pope of Rome, in spiritual
matters exclusively, the same authority
over bishops, and through them over
their flocks, which bishops, in all epis-
copal churches, have over their diocese
and clergy : — they allow him no temporal
authority — the distinction is nice, say
their enemies ; it may be so — but a dis-
tinction exists in their minds ; — and if we
judge in the scripture language, " of the
" tree by the fruit,'" or in vulgar phrase,
*' of the pudding by the eating" it exists
bothin Catholic and Protestant states,
without endangering the establishment,
or disturbing the tranquillity of either. —
In spite of papal supremacy, Catholic
states have made war with the popes,
have imprisoned their persons, have
plundered their provinces, and dismem-
bered their territories; — Catholic princes

12

and Catholic legislatures, have prohibit-
ed all clandestine intercourse with the
nominal head of the church, suppressed
his bulls, and punished the promulgation
of them. — Many of the laws against the
interference of the Pope in temporal con-
cerns, which are now in force in Great
Britain, and would, if the claims were
granted, continue in force, were enact-
ed by parliaments, not only admitting
Roman Catholic members, but entirely
composed of them. — Why, when Roman
Catholics can resist and defy the Pope,
are the two following improbable events to
be taken for granted, in order to frighten
theProtestants of England into a denial of
theirjust rights to theirCatholic brethren?
First it is supposed, that Roman
Catholics, chosen by a Protestant peo-
ple, or named by a Protestant prince,
will, against their duty and their interests,
be more subservient to a Pope than any
Catholic state ; — Secondly,it is imagined,
that a small minority of Catholics in
Parliament, will, if willing, be able to
shake the kingdom to its very founda-
tion, and to subvert its establishments-
Constituted as Parliament now is, or as
any reformer has proposed that it should
be, the Catholics must always be a very
small minority. — Tlie House of Lords

13

consists of above 350 members — of th^se,
30 are archbishops and bishops, necessa-
rily of the established church ; — sixteen
are chosen by a Presbyterian body of
nobility, composed of 79? iii which there
are two Catholics ; — twenty-eight are
chosen from a body of 220, in which
there are four Catholics ; — and of the re-
maining 276, Jive only are Catholics. —
The proportion their numbers would in
all probability bear to the Protestants,
would be less than two to a hundred ; —
the greatest proportion they could bear,
would not amount to four in a hundred.
— In the House of Commons, all the
close boroughs are in the hands of Protes-
tants, with a solitary and doubtful excep-
tion:— In Scotland there is scarcely a
Catholic ; and the great body of electors
in Great Britain, who chuse, 558 out of
658, are Protestants. — Catholics may be-
lieve in transubstantiation ; but what
Protestant can laugh at their credulity,
if he believes such a miracle as this, that
a parliament so chosen and composed,
will be converted to popery, or rendered
subservient to the views of a handful of
Roman Catholics? — Insignificant as their
numbers would be, there is no ground
for thinking, that they would be com-
pact.— Depending in a great measure oii

14

Protestant voters for their seats, and on
Protestant kings and ministers for their
places, the most bigotted will hardly be
selected. — If they are Roman Catholick,
bigots are but ill adapted to acquire in-
fluence and ascendancy in a Protestant
assembly. — Is the pursuit of worldly re-
ward ; is the familiarity with public men ;
are the hopes of office, the prospects of
advancement, the habits of business ; are
the attachments of political party calcu-
lated to strengthen the sentiment of reli-
gious zeal, or the bonds of religious
connection ? — Catholic electors in Ireland
often follow the interests of their Protes-
tant landlord, and vote for the enemies
of Catholic emancipation, rather than
for the advocates of their cause. It is
idle to suppose that in higher ranks, and
among men of education, knowledge, and
political ambition, the sense of religion,
and the devotion to a priesthood, will be
stronger than in the ignorant minds of au
unenlightened peasantry.

Those who talk of danger to your state,
your church, and your religion, basely
and purposely deceive you. They told
you the same in I78O — ^you took the
alarm, you imagined that the laws then
proposed, would restore popery, revive
Bloody Queen Mary, and light anew the

15

faggots of Smithfield. — In your ferment,
you nearly burnt down this noble metro-
polis;— but the laws passed, they have now
existed for thirty-three years, and no here-
tic has been burnt, no tyrant has appear-
ed.— The fears which zealots then promot-
ed, have turned out to be entirely ground-
less ; the alarm which interested and
servile men now propagate, will prove to
be as ill founded and absurd. The danger
they describe is indefinite and visionary.
— Gratify five millions of your fellow
subjects, and you will suffer no more by
it than by the laws which Lord George
Gordon and his rioters so vehemently
resisted.

We live in times when the Sovereign
has need of all the affection and all the
talents of the nation, to protect it against
external foes ; when the people have need
of all the honesty and independence of
the country to secure them against do-
mestic extravagance and corruption —
Restore then the constitutional exercise
of his prerogative to the one, and the
antient unfettered elective privileges to
the other — that they may respectively
nominate and elect those Englishmen who
are most zealous and serviceable in the
cause of their country, without more refe-
rence to the articles of their Creed than to

16

the colour of their hair : the true qualifi-
cations for office and for parliament, are
abilities, integrity, and zeal in the cause
of our country. — These may be found in
Catholics and Presbyterians, in Baptists
and Methodists, in the church, and out
of the church ; and, in short, every where,
where there is British blood in the veins,
and a British heart in the bosom.

The great defence against our foreign
foes, is the affection and union of the peo-
ple at home, — the only safeguard against
conspiracy and disaffection, are the just
and equal laws of our country ; and the
best security for our Protestant faith, is a
free press, and a free pulpit.

THE END.

W. Flint, Printer, Old Bailey, I/)iidon.